Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 5:57 am
Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery
I’m jumping ahead to this chapter because it is central to the cultural politics of Christ in Egypt. There is abundant evidence that the virgin mother archetype was widespread for thousands of years before Christianity. As well, the word ‘meri’ in the Egyptian sources means ‘beloved’, so Isis is continually referred to as Meri. As well, there are references in ancient Greek sources such as the scholar Epiphanius about the annual rituals of the virgin giving birth to the savior at Christmas time, as the days start to lengthen just after the winter solstice. The motif is widespread.
It has been a source of great frustration for Murdock that this observation is the subject of obtuse denial by Christian apologists. Her chapter on the topic is very long, because she wants to collect and present evidence from a very wide variety of ancient sources on the myth of the virgin mother. It seems like she uses a sledgehammer to crack a walnut here, and it does get a bit repetitive, but the reason is that this topic has been one of the main agendas for those who wish to assert that the virgin birth of Jesus Christ was a literal historical event that was unique and new. It was not new at all; rather, the evidence shows it was in clear continuity with ancient traditions from many countries.
So why do the dogmatists insist Jesus was special against all the evidence? This opens up some subconscious questions about motives and assumptions. My view, and I confess this is somewhat speculative, is that in pre-Christian myth the virgin mother was used to celebrate female identity and equality, whereas in Christianity it was turned into a patriarchal weapon to control and denigrate women. Abrahamic religions are completely patriarchal, emphasizing the authority of men over women. If they admit that the miracle of the virgin birth of Christ is subject to doubt, then their cultural construct of male superiority also becomes open to question. For those who use religion to justify traditional authority, creating an idol of a woman whose perfection is based on sexlessness has served as an instrument of social control of men over women.
My impression is that the ancient pagan virgin mothers such as Isis and Demeter served a very different role, because their worship was controlled by women just as much as by men. I am not sure how far this is true, especially considering that patriarchal religion did start its rise well before the time of Christianity. But the fact remains that deconstructing the myth of the virgin birth is a potentially powerful contribution to contemporary feminist efforts to restore equality of the sexes. It seems very plausible that this feminist factor in the sexual politics of religion is why dogmatists react with such irrational fury on this topic.
Reading this chapter made me think about the possible astrotheological meaning of virgin birth. Isis has a strong association with the Goddess of Night. Murdock discusses the role of Nut, the sky goddess, and Neith an ancient creator goddess. Murdock mentions that Nut is a source of the Biblical line at Matthew 3:17 ‘this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased’ spoken by God at the baptism of Jesus by John. And the great Egyptologist EA Wallis Budge said Isis is very like Neith in that both are perpetual virgins. I would be interested to know if Nut and Neith are related.
The virgin birth motif, with Horus representing the morning sun, made me wonder about how the sun is born each morning from the night. The night sky may well be regarded as virginal, in that it has a purity and peacefulness that is not violated in any way, and the sun seems to spontaneously generate each day out of the night.
Murdock is very much involved in feminist politics, for example in relation to the work of Barbara Walker on research into goddesses, although I didn’t see this aspect of the argument really made explicit in Christ in Egypt. There is an interesting speech by Walker on sexism in the Christian tradition. Feminist religion was prominent in the 1970s with writers such as Mary Daly and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. The feminist critique of patriarchal religion, how the church is a bastion of male superiority, seems to have become less part of the public debate in recent times. But feminism is central to the cultural politics of the Christ Myth Theory, and needs to be raised as an explicit philosophical question if the debate is to become more mainstream. The construction of the myth of Christ had an explicit sexist agenda, aimed at the destruction of older visions of sexual equality, so the deconstruction of the myth has to openly challenge this dimension of the sexual politics of mythology.
I’m jumping ahead to this chapter because it is central to the cultural politics of Christ in Egypt. There is abundant evidence that the virgin mother archetype was widespread for thousands of years before Christianity. As well, the word ‘meri’ in the Egyptian sources means ‘beloved’, so Isis is continually referred to as Meri. As well, there are references in ancient Greek sources such as the scholar Epiphanius about the annual rituals of the virgin giving birth to the savior at Christmas time, as the days start to lengthen just after the winter solstice. The motif is widespread.
It has been a source of great frustration for Murdock that this observation is the subject of obtuse denial by Christian apologists. Her chapter on the topic is very long, because she wants to collect and present evidence from a very wide variety of ancient sources on the myth of the virgin mother. It seems like she uses a sledgehammer to crack a walnut here, and it does get a bit repetitive, but the reason is that this topic has been one of the main agendas for those who wish to assert that the virgin birth of Jesus Christ was a literal historical event that was unique and new. It was not new at all; rather, the evidence shows it was in clear continuity with ancient traditions from many countries.
So why do the dogmatists insist Jesus was special against all the evidence? This opens up some subconscious questions about motives and assumptions. My view, and I confess this is somewhat speculative, is that in pre-Christian myth the virgin mother was used to celebrate female identity and equality, whereas in Christianity it was turned into a patriarchal weapon to control and denigrate women. Abrahamic religions are completely patriarchal, emphasizing the authority of men over women. If they admit that the miracle of the virgin birth of Christ is subject to doubt, then their cultural construct of male superiority also becomes open to question. For those who use religion to justify traditional authority, creating an idol of a woman whose perfection is based on sexlessness has served as an instrument of social control of men over women.
My impression is that the ancient pagan virgin mothers such as Isis and Demeter served a very different role, because their worship was controlled by women just as much as by men. I am not sure how far this is true, especially considering that patriarchal religion did start its rise well before the time of Christianity. But the fact remains that deconstructing the myth of the virgin birth is a potentially powerful contribution to contemporary feminist efforts to restore equality of the sexes. It seems very plausible that this feminist factor in the sexual politics of religion is why dogmatists react with such irrational fury on this topic.
Reading this chapter made me think about the possible astrotheological meaning of virgin birth. Isis has a strong association with the Goddess of Night. Murdock discusses the role of Nut, the sky goddess, and Neith an ancient creator goddess. Murdock mentions that Nut is a source of the Biblical line at Matthew 3:17 ‘this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased’ spoken by God at the baptism of Jesus by John. And the great Egyptologist EA Wallis Budge said Isis is very like Neith in that both are perpetual virgins. I would be interested to know if Nut and Neith are related.
The virgin birth motif, with Horus representing the morning sun, made me wonder about how the sun is born each morning from the night. The night sky may well be regarded as virginal, in that it has a purity and peacefulness that is not violated in any way, and the sun seems to spontaneously generate each day out of the night.
Murdock is very much involved in feminist politics, for example in relation to the work of Barbara Walker on research into goddesses, although I didn’t see this aspect of the argument really made explicit in Christ in Egypt. There is an interesting speech by Walker on sexism in the Christian tradition. Feminist religion was prominent in the 1970s with writers such as Mary Daly and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. The feminist critique of patriarchal religion, how the church is a bastion of male superiority, seems to have become less part of the public debate in recent times. But feminism is central to the cultural politics of the Christ Myth Theory, and needs to be raised as an explicit philosophical question if the debate is to become more mainstream. The construction of the myth of Christ had an explicit sexist agenda, aimed at the destruction of older visions of sexual equality, so the deconstruction of the myth has to openly challenge this dimension of the sexual politics of mythology.