The Egyptian Virgin Mother Goddess
Thanks for the deep discussion again, folks.
I wanted to chime in here with some comments and clarifications about Isis being a Virgin Mother and the general concept of the Virgin Mother in antiquity. When one understands the concept of
parthenogenesis or "virgin birth" in mythology dating back thousands of years, it should not be difficult to comprehend how Isis is yet another incarnation of the ages-old Parthenogenetrix/Virgin Mother.
As essentially proved by Dr. Marguerite Rigoglioso in her book
Virgin Mothers of Antiquity, long before Christianity came up with the notion of the "Virgin Mary" there were numerous goddesses likewise perceived, stemming from the general concept of a Goddess or female Divine Creator who creates out of herself, without external influence or male consort.
The Egyptian Goddess Neith
The Egyptian goddess Neith is evidently some 7,000 years old and is a direct predecessor of Isis. Concerning Neith, Rigoglioso (2010) relates:
...Neith was unequivocally portrayed as an autogenetic/ parthenogenetic creatrix in the inscriptions of the middle and late periods in Egypt, a depiction that may have characterized the goddess in her earliest cult as well. She specifically was both creator and "virgin," a being whose peplos, or dress, no one had lifted. As one of the oldest deities of Egypt, who most likely was worshipped throughout ancient Libya, she thus represents one of the earliest appearances of the archetype of the Virgin Mother goddess in the ancient Mediterranean world. (23)
It is important in discussing Neith as autogene, or self-created Virgin Mother...first to establish her preeminence in the Egyptian pantheon. Neith...was one of the oldest of all Egyptian deities and one of the most important divinities during the early historic period. There is strong evidence that her worship was widespread in predynastic times... She is first documented iconographically in the last phase of the predynastic period (c. fourth millennium B.C.E.)... (26)
As a divinity of the First Principle, Neith was an autogenetic goddess who, in the ultimate mystery, created herself out of her own being. Budge notes...that an inscription on a statue of Utchat-Heru, a high priest of Neith, relates that she "was the first to give birth to anything, and that she had done so when nothing else had been born, and that she had herself never been born." We see her autogenetic aspect echoed in both Egyptian and Greek texts. Plutarch...refers to an inscription on her statue in Sais...: "I am everything that has been, and that is, and that shall be, and no one has ever lifted my garment (peplos)."... That in the above-noted Saitic inscription Neith's "garment" remained perpetually "unlifted" is also a sexual reference... The inscription therefore communicates that Neith never engaged in any kind of sexual union; that is, she was eternally a virgin. Yet, as the primordial Being, she was also generative. Thus, in Neith we have one of the earliest appearances of the archetype of the Virgin Mother, the Holy Parthenos, in her original, unadulterated form. (29-30)
As we can see, the motif of a Divine Female birthing the cosmos without a male consort is firmly established as very ancient.
Isis as Divine Parthenogenetic Creatrix
Fast forward to Isis, and we discover that she is a form of Neith and shares the same attribute of being a Virgin Mother, evident from various artifacts that predate the Christian era by centuries and millennia, as I demonstrate in my article "
Isis is a Virgin Mother."
As stated by Egyptologist Dr. Reginald E. Witt, In
Isis in the Ancient World:
The Egyptian goddess who was equally "the Great Virgin" (hwnt) and "Mother of the God" was the object of the very same praise bestowed upon her successor [Mary, Virgin Mother of Jesus].
One of the inscriptions that calls Isis the "Great Virgin" appears in the temple of Seti I at Abydos dating to the 13th century BCE. As stated by professor of Old Testament and Catholic Theology at the University of Bonn Dr. G. Johannes Botterweck, in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament:
..The Pyramid Texts speak of "the great virgin" (hwn.t wr.t) three times (682c, 728a, 2002a...); she is anonymous, appears as the protectress of the king, and is explicitly called his mother once (809c). It is interesting that Isis is addresseed as hwn.t in a sarcophagus oracle that deals with her mysterious pregnancy. In a text in the Abydos Temple of Seti I, Isis herself declares: "I am the great virgin."...
It should be noted that the king or pharaoh, whose mother is called "the great virgin," is also the living Horus; hence, his great virgin mother would be Isis.
Also, as noted by Rigoglioso above, in the temple of Neith and Isis at Sais was an ancient inscription that depicted the virgin birth of the sun:
The present and the future and the past, I am. My undergarment no one has uncovered. The fruit I brought forth, the sun came into being.
As Dr. Botterweck also writes:
In the Late Period [712-332 BCE] in particular, goddesses are frequently called "(beautiful) virgins," especially Hathor, Isis, and Nephthys.
Also, there exists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York an ancient Carnelian ring stone from the Imperial period (1st-2nd cents. AD/CE) that is an "adaptation" of a Greek artifact from the fourth century BCE. The ring stone possesses an image of the Greco-Egyptian hybrid god Serapis-Hades and Isis standing before him holding an "ear of wheat and the sistrum." The Greek inscription reads:
The Lady Isis Immaculate
The phrase is translated as "The Lady Isis, Immaculate," the latter word from the Greek verb
agneuw, meaning "to be pure or chaste."
There is much more to this story, obviously, which is why in
Christ in Egypt I dedicated some 77 pages to this subject of "
The Virgin Mother Isis-Mery." The bottom line is that the concept of a Virgin Mother predates Christianity by thousands of years. It should be further noted that from remote antiquity this Divine Mother was apparently often called "Mari," as in Southern India, Phoenicia and among the Basques, to name a few. Hence, we can see that the Christian "Virgin Mary" concept is derivative from ancient myth, not a "unique and divine revelation" about a "real person."