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The Resurrection of Osiris According to Farrell Till
By Mark Mcfall
In my experiences with critics I have often been faced with the charge that Christ’s resurrection was borrowed from the accounts of the most well known god in all of ancient Egyptian history - Osiris. Indeed, Osiris as explained by one of Christianity’s most out-spoken critics Farrell Till (editor of the Skeptical Review and owner of the critical list - Errancy) seems to show that such similarities do exist. While this article focuses for the most part on Mr. Till’s formulated parallels between Jesus Christ and Osiris, it nonetheless will adequately equip Christians with enough critical information to give a ready response (1 Peter 3:15) to those who have expressed similar analogues.
The best way for me to familiarize you with how the critic approaches this seemingly close similarity is to present a portion of a debate that took place on March 29, 1994, at the Columbus College Fine Arts Hall (Columbus, GA) between Christian apologist Norman Geilser, and former preacher Farrell Till.[1] In that debate, Mr. Till had made the following assertion in his concluding remarks:
“I'll use this time to refer to some things that I didn't have the opportunity to refer to during the regular speeches. Dr. Geisler made the statement that the pagans saviors were not like Jesus because they did not experience bodily resurrection. But I want to assure you, my friends, that that is not so. O-s-i-r-i-s, write it down, O-s-i-r-i-s, he was an ancient Egyptian, virgin-born, savior-god who died, and he was resurrected. You research and you'll find that his mother [sic2] searched for his body that had been torn to pieces, put it back together, sort of like in Frankenstein manner, and he was resurrected bodily back to life. That's just one example that I could give you...He [Geisler] is depending upon your ignorance, people. And I'm not trying to be insulting to you. Your preachers do it all the time. You get the wool pulled over your eyes, and it's your own fault, because you don't know the Bible, first of all, and you certainly know very little about the history of religion. If you would go examine the evidence, you would see that many of the things that he is telling you have no basis in fact.”[3]3]
Unfortunately Dr. Geisler chose not to respond to Mr. Till’s comments (see “The Geisler-Till Debate,” Skeptical Review, 1994, #3 {http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1994/3/3geis94.html}). But Till asks us (the audience) to do some “research” on Osiris to bear out his assertion. Well, I did, and what I found was sloppy reporting on the part of Till.
The Myth
The most common and complex version of the Osiris myth comes from the Greek historian Plutarch (approx. c.34-125 A.D.) in his work Isis and Osiris. According to Till’s paraphrase of that work found in the archives of the critical list Errancy, he writes:
“Osiris's evil brother Set plotted with others to kill Osiris. This was accomplished by tricking Osiris during a banquet to lie down in a chest that had been especially prepared for him. When Osiris was inside the chest, Set and his cohorts closed it immediately and took it to the Nile and put it into the river. When Isis, the sister-wife of Osiris heard what had happened, she set out to find the chest. The legend is detailed, but to make a long story short, Isis learned that the chest had drifted out to sea and landed on the coast of Byblos. She went there, found the chest, recovered the body, embraced it, and wailed inconsolably. She hid the body in a secret place, which Set discovered, after which he severed the body into 14 different pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt. The myth then continues as Isis searched Egypt, found the body parts, put them back together, and then hovered over Osiris and fanned the breath of life back into his body.”[4] 4]
Mr. Till has for the most part accurately reported the myth up to this point from Plutarch. But, it is the language that Till uses next which implies that he is not satisfied in keeping with the type of terminology used by Plutarch.”[5] Mr. Till writes:
“Different versions of the myth will disagree in some details, but an old inerrantist comment about inconsistencies in the gospel accounts of the resurrection is worth adapting to the Osiris myth: the important thing is that all of the accounts agree that Osiris was killed and resurrected to life.”[6]
Readers should take notice of the change in expression used by Till from “fanned the breath of life back into his body,“ to that of “resurrected to life.” Methodologically, Mr. Till has amalgamated the two phrases in order to make his own exaggerated parallel look real. But scholarship is not so quick to take that extra step. Indeed, Bruce Metzger (Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton Theological Seminary) comments:
“Whether this can be rightly called a resurrection is questionable...” (Bruce Metzger, _Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian_, pg. 21).
Professor Ronald Nash author of the informative book _The Gospels And The Greeks_ agrees with Metzger’s assessment and explains that “some writers go much too far and refer to Osiris’s resurrection.”[7] Nash sees the terminology used by Till (and others) as claiming far more than the myth allows. This view according to Nash suggests the misleading analogy of a comparison between the resurrection of Jesus and the resuscitation of Osiris. Moreover, while Till is correct in commenting that “different versions of the myth will disagree in some details,” he has exaggerated his point that “the important thing is that
ALL [emphasis mine] of the accounts agree that Osiris was killed and resurrected to life.” To this Professor Nash informs us that:
“Not every version of the myth has Osiris returning to life; in some he simply becomes king of the underworld.”[8]8]
Karl Widemann Professor of Egyptology at the University of Bonn. collaborates Nash’s assessment:
“Above all, the conceptions regarding the most important episode in the god’s existence, namely his resurrection, differed very widely, especially in the later texts.”[9]
Till’s attempt to exaggerate the existing evidence is strained by the data. Even in those instances where the text may be questionable, many scholars are reluctant to refer to it as a resurrection. Professor Nash captures the German scholar Gunter Wagner in one of these moments, Wagner writes:
“Osiris knew no resurrection, but was resuscitated to be a ruler of the Nether world.” [10]
Informed scholars don’t see this as cut and dry as Till would have us believe, and this will become clearer as we continue to examine Till’s claim.
Natural Symbolism
According to the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ under the entry Osiris, we read:
“From about 2000 BC onward it was believed that every man, not just the deceased kings, became associated with Osiris at death. This identification with Osiris, however, did not imply resurrection, for even Osiris did not rise from the dead. Instead, it signified the renewal of life both in the next world and through one's descendants on Earth. In this universalized form Osiris' cult spread throughout Egypt, often joining with the cults of local fertility and underworld deities.”[11]11]
This contemporary secular source understands that “Osiris did not rise from the dead.” Furthermore, upon checking the _Encyclopedia of Religion_ we find that Osiris was “originally a vegetation god.”[12] The death of Osiris symbolized to the Egyptians the yearly drought and in his rebirth the periodical flooding of the Nile and the growth of grain. This of course, represents the pattern of cyclical recurrences of seasons. Professor Bruce Metzger says of this:
“such myths are the expression of ancient nature-symbolism; the spirit of vegetation dies every year and rises every year.”[13]13]
The Christian faith is so vastly different from this type of reoccurring naturalist symbolism. For the Christian, the importance of Jesus’ work was related just to this “once-for-all” (Hebrews 10:10) character of his death and resurrection.[14]
What Did Till Mean?
As a member of the critical list known as Errancy, I had the opportunity to ask other critics if Farrell Till really meant a bodily resurrection to earth, or a bodily resurrection to the netherworld. One critic responded to me by charging that I was misinterpreting Till’s comments to mean that Osiris was resurrected to earth. The critic writes:
“Wrong, wrong, wrong. Till NEVER says in the debate that Osiris was resurrected back to earth. Just show us where he said this.”[15]15]
Immediately after this, Till responded to this critic by clarifying that:
“I may not have specifically said ‘resurrected back to earth’ in the debate, but the myth requires that conclusion, as you will see in a separate reply that I have sent to Mark McFall.[16]
It is clear (if it was not before) from this reply by Farrell Till that I am not misunderstanding him on this. My reasoning for bringing this to the attention of readers is to show future critics who read this article that I am not taking Mr. Till out of context.
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